ABSTRACT
The history of water in the northern Horn of Africa is a history of people and topography. The region has long been known for its long history of farming, social complexity and early kingdoms – all developing in environments traditionally considered as prone to water-scarcity in the past as well as today such as the highlands of northern Ethiopia and central Eritrea. This chapter attempts to review the legacy of past water systems into traditional water management practices. Agro-pastoral groups were present in the nothern Ethiopian highlands by the fourth millennium bce, and most likely much earlier. Two are the main water management practices that have been discussed in archaeological literature with reference to the development of settlements and urbanism in the Ethiopia–Eritrean highlands: water reservoirs and irrigation. In the Ethiopian–Eritrean highlands, the various historical and traditional water systems that are still efficient appear all characterised, in different ways, by some degree of diversity, dynamism and flexibility.
